


Just A Regular Guy

by shy_cactus



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Crack, Filbrick Pines Is A Jerk, Gen, Memory Erasing Gun, Minor Character(s), Monsters, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Weirdmageddon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shy_cactus/pseuds/shy_cactus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Approximately eighteen years before his grandkids come to Gravity Falls, Shermie Pines is stubbornly normal, despite the world's attempts to make him otherwise. He has a rickety little house in New Jersey and works at an accounting firm, where he can never remember the receptionist's name.<br/>That is, until a giant purple bread-faced monster gets trapped in his garage.<br/>…And Shermie find himself befriending the monster.</p>
<p>Based on <a href="http://paradise-is-cancelled.tumblr.com/post/137045584005/x">this.</a><br/>(The date at the beginning of each chapter marks when the chapter begins, not necessarily how much time passes in the chapter.  The timeline gets flexible sometime around chapters 6 and 7.)<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_sometime in 1994_

 

If asked, Shermie Pines would swear up and down he never meant for any of this.

Of course, that would never happen. But that part comes later.

One day he was just hiding (trapping) the monster in his garage because he couldn’t tell if the rednecks shouting outside were hunting _it_ or if it was the other way around– he knew those guys could be jerks, but from the way the thing growled it was entirely possible it was just trying to eat them.

He couldn’t tell exactly _how_ it growled, either, or how it ate. Or how it made that bone-grinding roar when he left it too long without feeding it. So for a week he put on all his best protective gear (this mostly involved wearing a scuffed-up bicycle helmet and rubber boots, and holding his only sturdy kitchen chair legs-forward in front of him) and delivered a hamburger to the garage in a frying pan taped securely to a broom so he didn’t have to get too close to it. He never saw the monster eat the hamburger– it just sat in the shadows like a… well, like a giant loaf of bruise-coloured bread (and were those _trees_ on its… shoulders? haunches?), making some sort of heavy panting/snuffling sound, but the hamburger was always gone the next time he came down to get his frying pan and broom back.

And then one day he flicked on the garage lights and the monster was sitting there, and yes, those were definitely _trees_ on its… shoulders… and its breathing was more even than he had heard it before, and he… he sat down on the steps and watched it.

It was fascinating, in a grotesque, what-the-hell-is-this sort of way.

_(When Shermie was eleven, he saw some kind of massive bird perched across from his school building and thought it was some kind of gargoyle he hadn’t noticed before until it moved its head and stared right at him. Dad told him he wasn’t paying enough attention in school if he had time to make up stories about birds.)_

It just sat there watching him, kind of like a dog but bigger– much bigger. Even sitting, it brushed against the ceiling. Shermie wasn’t sure how he knew it was watching him, since it didn’t have eyes anywhere (where _were_ all of its features?), but its attention was definitely on him. The feeling made his skin crawl.

_(A few days later, eleven-year-old Shermie looked out the window just in time to see the bird-creature swoop down and pick up an unsuspecting businessman, suit and all. He told himself he was imagining it, like Dad had said, and kept his eyes inside the classroom for the rest of the year.)_

“I appreciate the burgers,” the monster said after a long while. Its voice was low, rumbly, made Shermie’s whole house shake (not that that was hard; he wasn’t sure anything in this house was actually attached to anything else), but was somehow… gentler than Shermie would have expected.

If he’d expected that _thing_ to speak at all.

“Uh,” was all he could say. _It appreciates the burgers._

“But,” the monster continued, “you realise that to someone of my size, they’re hardly more than snacks, right?”

Shermie couldn’t process anything the monster was saying. “Uh,” he said again.

The monster considered. “Still, I suppose it’s better than starving to death while those puny pink creatures outside try to kill me with their metal shooting tubes. _Humans._ ” It paused. “No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” Shermie said faintly. Maybe he was imagining this, like he’d imagined the bird at school. That must be it. He shook his head and stood, heading back up the stairs before he could second-guess himself.

-

The next day, the monster was still in his garage. _How did it get there?_ Shermie wondered suddenly, when he flicked on the light switch at the top of the stairs and saw how big it was compared to the doors in his house. Even without the trees on its shoulders, there was no way it had gotten in anywhere except…

The garage door. Of course. Although the last week and a half had been kind of a blur– he hadn’t been to work in days, and he was probably about to be fired– he had a hazy memory of being outside washing his car when the thing galumphed into his garage and he’d been so startled he automatically slammed the button to close the door. When the rednecks caught up and started shouting and waving their guns around, Shermie had fled as well.

There was still dried soap all over his car.

Shermie was not the kind of guy who let monsters into his garage, nor the kind who subsequently kept them there and fed them. Shermie was not the kind of guy who skipped work to make sure said monster didn’t destroy his house. Shermie was the kind of guy who wore pin-striped shirts and beige suits and worked in an accounting office from nine to five with guys called Brad, Jeffrey, and Steve, and a lady called Nancy, and occasionally nodded politely to Patty (or was it Penny?), the receptionist. Shermie was the kind of guy who never changed his sandwich order from exactly what it said on the menu, even if maybe he would have liked a little extra mayonnaise.

So why, then, did he stand on the stairs, looking down at this purple sponge cake of a forest monster, and ask it its name?

He half expected it to say _Bigfoot_ or something equally cliché. Instead, it let out a hum that made Shermie’s ears feel like they had been stuffed full of cotton. “They say my name must never be said,” it rumbled eventually.

Shermie crossed his arms. “Fine,” he huffed. He _huffed._ Shermie was not the kind of person who _huffed._

“Fine,” he tried again. “Well, I’m Shermie. You should…” He cleared his throat. “You should probably go.”

The part of the monster Shermie assumed was its head– the flat bit up front that looked like a slice of bread– turned from side to side, as though the monster was looking at where it was. “Of course,” it said. “It’s just…” The slice of bread part of it kind of drooped. “I’m just a little bit worried those other humans might still be out there. I’m not exactly–“ it lifted up a paw, which, Shermie saw now, kind of resembled something more like… a gorilla’s foot?– “inconspicuous.”

Shermie blinked. “I can… check,” he offered. “I kind of know those guys.” What he meant was that he saw them at the grocery store sometimes, buying beer to celebrate whatever they’d killed most recently. He tried to avoid having to talk to them. He often hid in a different aisle until they left.

Shermie was not the kind of person who offered to check on rednecks for a purple monster hiding in his garage.

“…I would appreciate that,” the monster said. And it actually sounded grateful. 


	2. Chapter 2

_sometime in 1994_

 

The rednecks didn’t look like they were going anywhere. One of them lived across the street from Shermie, so they all set up little camouflage tents in the front lawn, which was hardly more than a rectangle of dry grass stubs, and prowled back and forth, sometimes leveling their shotguns at Shermie’s garage.

So, “If it’s not _too_ much trouble, would you mind letting me stay another day or two?” the monster asked apologetically. “Just until they go?”

Shermie sighed, but he couldn’t say no. He was not the kind of person who was unnecessarily cruel to guests who needed a favour of him.

He called into the office. “How may I direct your call?” asked the receptionist, Patty.

“Hi, Patty. This is Shermie Pines. Uh, listen, I can’t come into work today…” As soon as he said it, he instinctively knew her name was actually Penny. He let out a long breath that would have been a tortured groan if he hadn’t been on the phone. Instead he scratched his head, tugging at his hair, which had been more dishevelled this last week than any other time in his entire life, and waited for Penny to say something.

“Aaall right,” she said. Her voice sounded nasal through the phone. Maybe that was just how she talked. “…Ah, Mr. Pines. Mr. Engleman has just instructed me to inform you that you no longer need worry about coming in.”

Shermie leaned against the kitchen counter and closed his eyes. Of course. It was that monster’s fault. “All right. Uh, thanks, Penny.” He hung up.

Her name was really Peggy. He was sure of it.

-

The monster stayed for much longer than a few days.

Eventually the rednecks left, but Shermie had stopped checking. Since losing his job, he’d taken to going down into the garage, always meaning to tell the monster to get out but always ending up sitting down on the stairs and talking to it about his day, about himself, about itself.

It said it got bored down in the garage all day. Shermie started bringing it first the crosswords from his papers, then eventually the whole newspaper. He thought it would have been polite to invite it up into his home, but there was no way it would fit through the door, and it said it didn’t feel safe from the rednecks enough to spend time outside. Anyway, it told Shermie, it didn’t much care for direct sunlight.

He did start bringing it more than just hamburgers, even though he wasn’t having much success looking for a job and cooking for both himself and some elephant-sized bread-gorilla kind of put a strain on his bank account.

It was after two months of this that the creature finally shook its head and told him, “Look, Shermie, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but you can’t keep me in your garage forever. You certainly can’t let me ruin your career like I’ve been doing. You need to get back on track. I think it’s time for me to go.” Its voice still made Shermie’s whole house shake, but Shermie had gotten used to the sensation.

Shermie frowned. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m sure we could–“

The creature stretched its front legs forward, letting out a sound Shermie was pretty sure was a yawn. “No, no. I have to go. I’ve been away from home for too long, anyway. Would you mind please opening this large door?”

With a sigh, Shermie did as it asked. But, “Hey,” he said, as it rose onto all fours to leave. “Uh, don’t be a stranger, okay?”

-

After the monster left, Shermie sat on the stairs for a while, chin in hands, a few strands of thick brown hair falling in his face, staring at the garage that seemed so much bigger now that it wasn’t full of monster. He was thirty years old. He was not the kind of person who felt vaguely empty after a giant purple monster finally left his garage. He was not the kind of person who… kind of thought maybe he and the giant purple monster had become friends.

No. It was for the better that it had left– and it had been right about itself, anyway. Shermie needed to find a job, and he couldn’t do that with that thing in his garage relying on him.

Shermie spent the rest of that day at the library, making copies of his resume, and poking his head into businesses to ask if they were hiring. Most were not. Two, though, agreed to interview him… the grocery store, and his original accounting firm’s competitor. Not that it mattered, since his original firm had fired him.

Shermie’s first thought when he got home was to go down to the garage and tell the monster about his upcoming interviews. Then, of course, he remembered that the garage was empty and there was no monster to tell.

He… hadn’t realised what a lonely person he was.

-

Shermie got the job at the rival accounting firm. Now he worked in a different office, with guys called Alex, Richard, and Leland, and a woman called Janet. They all _sagged_ , and Shermie couldn’t help but wonder if he too would grow jowls if he worked here for long enough.

He committed the receptionist’s name to memory. Lisa. He couldn’t help but wonder if PattyPennyPeggy hadn’t told him to never come back out of spite for getting her name wrong twice in the same phone call.

The house was so quiet. Shermie had gotten used to the monster’s heavy panting in the garage, and that night, trying to fall asleep, it took him a little while to figure out what was wrong. The next few nights were the hardest.

-

He threw himself into his new job. There was a reason he had gone to work at his original firm (after the first week here, he could feel his skin threatening to droop, and he had to fight not to speak in monotone) but work was work; he wouldn’t let the taupe walls and white spaghetti-pattern tiled ceiling get him down. (Richard, the guy two cubicles to his right, called it “textured” in a lifeless tone; as in, “You know, Sherm, the textured ceiling really lifts my spirits,” but in the least spirited way possible.)

Shermie would give anything to never hear Richard shorten his name to “Sherm” again.

At the end of his second week, Jon Fisher, his manager, called Shermie into his office. Taupe walls. Fake plant in the corner. Mr. Fisher steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “You know, Mr. Pines, you seemed kind of down at first,” Mr. Fisher said. “But your work ethic has really impressed me. I think you’ll do well here.” Shermie’s work ethic was comprised mainly of staying up a little too late and forgetting to eat breakfast most mornings, but he was not the kind of person who shared those facts with his new boss. He had a work ethic, apparently. These next five years would not be ruined by some fantastic creature coming to live in his garage.

That didn’t change the fact that it was awfully quiet around the house, though. Most people fixed that problem with a wife, but Shermie was not the kind of person who wanted to get married. Or a dog, but Shermie was allergic. _Maybe I should adopt a kid,_ he thought, and let out a chuckle. Now _that_ was a notion. Shermie and a kid.


	3. Chapter 3

_sometime in 1994_

 

It turned out there was no need to wait five years to have his career ruined. Six months after he started at Andrews & Anderson, on a mild Wednesday evening, there was a knock on his front door. Shermie blinked, then put down his mug of tea and went to see who it was.

This time of year, it was getting dark early. Shermie didn’t see anything outside, and thought it must have been some punk teenager playing a prank. Just before he moved back to close the door, though, a familiar purplish shape stepped out of the dusk. “Shermie,” it said.

“You!” Shermie exclaimed. He stood there, one hand still on the door as though he were about to close it. Then he came forward again. “…What are you doing back here?”

The creature looked away. “I thought,” it said, and stopped. “I just, well, I kind of thought it would be nice to see you again. Your garage may have been boring, and you never understood how much I needed to eat, but I… enjoyed my time here. Anyway, the rednecks have… given up on me, so it’s safe for me to come and go.” It said the last part carefully, like it was trying to be tactful for some reason. (Not that Shermie would notice, but all the members of that particular troupe of rednecks had skipped town suddenly the week before.)

“Well, I’m… glad to see you,” Shermie said, and he meant it. “Uh, it’s kind of cold out here. Do you want to come into the garage?”

-

He taught the creature how to operate the garage door so it could get out when it wanted to, because he still needed to go to work– Mr. Fisher may have been thinking about giving him a raise at the end of the year. He told the creature, of course, about his new job; about how every day he was there made his eyelids sag a little more, and how the microwave in the break room smelled like wet socks. The creature told him about its friends at home.

Shermie wondered what kind of place a creature like this one called home.

It also told him, as he was getting into his car to go to work, that its name was Xanthar.

-

Even though the first time he’d thought it, it had been a joke, Shermie couldn’t quite get the notion of a kid out of his head. He knew kids were a pain, that they didn’t listen to adults and they didn’t clean up after themselves and they wanted all kinds of things without giving a bit in return, but… maybe that wasn’t a bad thing? Something inside him had latched onto the idea. Xanthar wouldn’t stay with him forever, anyway. He found himself researching New Jersey’s adoption laws.

Still, having Xanthar around was great while it lasted, and it lasted… longer than Shermie had expected. Xe was much less of a strain on Shermie’s bank account now that xe was comfortable enough to go out and hunt for xer own food, though Shermie avoided asking what exactly it was that Xanthar ate. Xe always finished before xe came back to the garage, and Shermie wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And Shermie had been saving newspapers while Xanthar was gone, so xe didn’t get bored.

It was another three months before Shermie finally said, “Xanthar, I’ve been thinking.” Sometimes, when he said Xanthar’s name, the house shook like it did when Xanthar xemself spoke.

Xanthar looked up from xer newspaper. “What is it?”

“Well, it gets pretty quiet around here,” Shermie began. “I guess you know that. It’s just… well, I might like to adopt a kid. A teenager, I guess.”

Xanthar perked up– if an elephant-shaped bread-gorilla could really be said to _perk up._ “A kid?”

Shermie looked away, scratching his head. “I was just thinking about it. Maybe I wouldn’t.”

“No, no, you should,” Xanthar said. “It would be nice to have some more company around here. Not that yours isn’t enough. I just mean–“

“I know,” Shermie said, before Xanthar could finish. He paused. “…You think it’s a good idea?”

Xanthar nodded. “You could even put me down if you need a second parent name. I think it would be great.” Xe went back to reading xer newspaper, but Shermie sat there on the stairs, blown away by what Xanthar had just said. That was the part of the process he’d been worried about. If Xanthar was willing to be the second name…

Maybe it actually _was_ a good idea.

-

Another month went by. Shermie filed an application to adopt a teenage boy, signed with the names _Shermie and Alexandra Pines._

Xanthar was just not a human enough name for an adoption form.

One morning, after he shaved and was appraising his looks in the bathroom mirror, Shermie noticed that something looked odd. He ran his hands through his hair and– oh. _Oh._

He ran down to the garage. “Xanthar!” he panted. (He was not the kind of person who got much exercise.) “Xanthar, something has happened! My hair has turned black overnight!”

Xanthar looked up. Shermie had gotten used to the fact that xe didn’t seem to have any eyes. “Oh,” xe said. “That’s probably dimensional residue.”

“Dimensional _what?_ ”

“Residue. It’s harmless, but…” Xanthar rose to xer feet. “I should go, so nothing else happens.”

Shermie held out a hand to stop xem. “No, wait.” He repeated the words in his head. _Dimensional residue._

_(When Shermie was nine, he had an assignment to write about his family. He asked Ma about his brothers. She barely looked up to tell him not to ask. Later, he found a picture of his brothers– one of them had six fingers on each hand.)_

“…What do you mean by _dimensional?_ ”

So Xanthar explained. Xe came from another dimension, one that was… xe paused here. “Very different,” xe said. “If all that changed was your hair colour, it would be a weird day.”

Different… dimensions. Shermie squeezed his eyes shut. He was not the kind of person who believed in things like that. But then, giant purple creatures weren’t covered in any high school biology classes.

“So, what, you… came here and brought some…”

“I brought some _weird_ with me.” How Shermie could tell Xanthar was smiling (or… whatever the faceless equivalent was), he didn’t know. “But really, I should go so nothing else–“

“No,” Shermie said. “You can stay. I don’t mind– you said it’s harmless.” He smiled sheepishly. “But, uh, is there any way to change it back? If I go into work like this, Leland will think I’ve had a mid-life crisis.”

(Maybe he had.)


	4. Chapter 4

_sometime in 1995_

 

“Xanthar, I think something’s wrong– my microwave keeps rattling.”

-

“Xanthar, my favourite lamp just _looked_ at me!”

-

“Xanthar, why is there a row of tiny forks where I left my comb?”

 

Through some impossibly lucky chain of events, Shermie and “Alexandra” Pines were approved, eight months later, to adopt a fifteen-year-old boy named James. Shermie hadn’t asked for a kid who looked like him, but when he met James for the first time he was surprised by how much the kid looked like Shermie’s brothers had at that age.

“Uh, hi, James? I’m Shermie. I’m just wondering, how are you with… _odd_ housemates?”

-

James wasn’t very surprised by Xanthar. “Oh,” was all he said, glancing at Shermie. “Nice of you to tell me my new mom is purple and made of bread.”

“I said I had an odd housemate,” Shermie said faintly.

“Didn’t mention the gorilla hands.”

James fit in just fine.

-

The kid was already enrolled in high school, so there was something Shermie didn’t have to worry about. He did wonder if he should be concerned when James said he wouldn’t be home until hours after school ended most days, but when Shermie brought it up in the garage, Xanthar told him not to worry so much. “He’s a teenager. Let him have a little freedom,” xe said. Xe didn’t even look at Shermie, just flipped to the next page of xer newspaper. It was an old one; after Xanthar finished the current newspaper xe liked to go back and read through papers xe hadn’t read in a while.

“If you say so,” Shermie said, but he wasn’t certain that a creature from an entirely different _dimension_ knew what was best for a teenage human boy.

“I’m in the chess club,” James said by way of explanation, the next night. Shermie breathed a sigh of relief.

-

All things considered, James settled in fairly smoothly. Weeks passed, then months, then a year. Shermie turned thirty-two, James turned sixteen, and Xanthar turned… Shermie had no idea. Xe didn’t ask for a birthday celebration, just kept one of the blue-and-purple party hats from James’s. Shermie wasn’t sure how time compared in xer dimension.

James had started spending an awful lot of time, Shermie thought, with a girl from school. Her name was… Jessica? Yes, that must have been right. He was sure she was a nice girl, but he wasn’t sure if maybe he should be worried about just how _much_ time she and James were spending together. They had gone to see movies. _Multiple times._ Were they dating? Shermie had never had any firsthand experience with dating, but now that he was responsible for a teenager he thought maybe that was something he should have been more involved in.

Xanthar told him not to worry about it. Xe had dedicated a whole corner of the garage to stacks of old newspapers, meticulously arranged by date. Xe still amazed Shermie with how dexrous xer gorilla fingers could be, turning pages and carefully stacking perfectly folded newspapers…

Shermie tried to do what Xanthar said and not worry about it. Xe had been right about lots of things, after all; chess club, the kid’s school project about tomatoes, shoe sizes…

“I don’t know what I’d do without you around,” could often be heard from the garage.  

-

Shermie made no pretense of being James’s father, despite James’s joke about his new “mom” when he first met Xanthar. Still, he tried to at least be there for him; they went to a baseball game together once, but didn’t try it again because James shouted at the teams from the bleachers and Shermie just got confused and asked too many questions about what was going on. “Shermie,” James had said, exasperated, “I can’t _explain_ these things. That’s just how the game works. You’re distracting me.”

After he’d been with the firm for two and a half years, Shermie got called into Mr. Fisher’s office. Mr. Fisher had moved up in rank, and now he told Shermie that he could be very useful to the firm at their branch in California. “California?” Shermie asked, wishing his voice didn’t get squeaky when he was surprised. He’d never lived anywhere but New Jersey.

“That’s right. You know, Mr. Pines, you’ve really proven your worth over the last few years, and we’d like you to consider the position in California. You’d be paid more, of course. Get back to me by the end of the month.”

 _California._ Shermie came home that evening in a daze.   When Xanthar asked how his day was, he rested his chin in his hands and stared into the distance, like he hadn’t heard.

“Shermie,” Xanthar said again. Xe pushed xer newspaper to the side. “Is something wrong?”

“They want me to take a job in California,” Shermie said. It felt like a dream, but not one that was especially good or bad. “Where’s James?”

“In the kitchen, last I heard.” Xanthar looked up at the ceiling. Xe could hear everything that happened in the house, of course, through the floor. “Should I get him to come down?”

Shermie didn’t completely process this before Xanthar let out a deep noise that shook the house like a minivan had just rammed into it. A minute later, James opened the door and stuck his head into the garage. “Is something wrong?”

“We need to talk,” Xanthar said calmly.

-

“It would be… a big change.” Shermie ran a hand through his black hair. He’d gotten used to it. “James…”

The kid looked up. “Yeah?” Shermie could see the resignation setting into James’s face. “You gonna send me back?”

“No, I just…” Shermie sighed. “You haven’t been with us for very long, so if you didn’t want to move all the way across the country with me I’d… understand. I wouldn’t want to drag you with me if you didn’t want to come.”

James tilted his head and stuck his jaw out a little. “And if I did want to come?”

-

Shermie still wasn’t sure. He had a couple weeks to get his decision to Mr. Fisher, but he was not the kind of person who liked to take a long time making decisions.

He called his parents.

A familiar almost-hoarse voice answered. “Yes?”

“Ma!” Shermie breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s me, Shermie. I was just wondering… do you think you and Dad could meet me for lunch tomorrow? I want to talk to you about some things.”

“Sure, Shermie.” It sounded like Ma was chewing gum. “Say, has your voice gotten deeper? I always knew it would happen eventually. Anyway, Shermie, I’ll tell your father.”

“…Thanks.”

Shermie hung up. That was that, then. Ma and Dad would be able to tell him what he should do.


	5. Chapter 5

_sometime in 1997_

 

Shermie met his parents for lunch at a burger place in town. “Good American food,” Dad remarked, scanning the restaurant. This was as close as he ever got to an approving tone.

“Shermie, are you dyeing your hair?” Ma asked, peering at him.

“Uh…” Shermie had forgotten about his hair.

“No, no, it looks good,” Ma said. She had already turned her attention to the menu. “Professional or something.”

They ordered, and while they waited for their food Shermie fingered the prongs of his fork. He felt self-conscious about his voice now. Was it really deeper? “So, the accounting firm I work for–“

“Now, son,” Dad said, looking down at him– Shermie automatically shrunk down an inch or two around Dad– “don’t be rude. Eat first, business later.”

He couldn’t think of a reason his voice would have gotten deeper at this age. “But there’s no food yet…?”

Unless… sometimes people’s voices changed to match whoever they were talking to, didn’t they? And he had been _living_ with Xanthar.

“Oh, let the boy talk,” said Ma, waving a hand. “It’s not like we have anything better to do.”

That meant they had called off other plans to come to lunch. An uncomfortable feeling settled in Shermie’s stomach.

“At Andrews & Anderson, my boss–“

“What kind of name is that?” Dad interrupted. “Ya don’t call a company after two people with the same name. What kind of idiots are you working for, son?”

“They’re not–“ Shermie sighed. “Work is work, Dad. It pays well. What I wanted to talk about–“

Dad silenced him with an annoyed look. The food had arrived. Shermie leaned back awkwardly to let the waitress, a blonde in a white apron, set the plates down. “Will there be anything else?” she asked, big teeth, big smile.

“No, I don’t think so,” Shermie said.

“They don’t make ‘em like that anymore,” Dad remarked loudly as the waitress walked away. Shermie wanted to disappear.

“I wanted to ask both of you–“

“Son, I already told you. We eat first, then talk.” Dad reached across the table and shoved Shermie’s plate closer to him. “Do as I say.”

They ate in silence. Finally, after Dad had finished his fries, he nodded for Shermie to speak.

Shermie sighed. _Please no more interruptions._ “The accounting firm I work for has offered me a position at its branch in California.” He shut his eyes, not wanting to see his parents’ faces.

“Cali _fornia?_ ” Ma’s Jersey accent always got stronger when she was worked up. “What on earth would they want you in Cali _for_ nia for?” She tossed her napkin onto the table. Shermie opened his eyes. “You can’t _seriously_ be considering this.”

“I don’t know what to do, that’s why I asked you–“ Shermie trailed off when he saw Dad’s disapproving stare. “I wasn’t sure,” he finished lamely.

Dad leaned back against the cracked vinyl of his seat. “Of course you’re not going to California,” he said, as though that was that. And maybe it was. “Your mother and I need _someone_ to stick around with us.”

“ _Filbrick_ ,” Ma said, but Shermie shrugged.

“I guess I’ll tell Mr. Fisher I can’t take the job.”

Dad nodded. “Good. You’re a sensible one, son.” He shifted in the way that signaled it was time to go. Ma stood up to let Dad out. “Now, what about your house? You’re living with someone, right? Some Alexandra woman?”

“Ooh,” Ma cooed. “I predicted you would find yourself a woman someday.”

Shermie went red. “Uh…”

“Come on, son, we haven’t been to yours in years. Quality time,” Dad said. The phrase was his way of getting family members to do what he wanted. There was no way to refuse without looking like a jerk.

Shermie had no choice but to bring Ma and Dad over. “…Right.”

-

Shermie stepped inside, making as much noise as he could taking off his shoes. “I’m home,” he called. Almost as loudly, “Ma, Dad, would you like me to take your coats?”

“There’s no need to be so loud,” Dad said as he tossed his coat into Shermie’s arms. “We’re not going deaf.”

Shermie didn’t respond, just hung his parents’ coats up on hooks near the door. James poked his head out from the kitchen. “Hi, Shermie–“ He saw the extra people and stopped.

“Uh, Ma, Dad, this is James. James, these are my… parents.”

“He’s… yours?” Ma asked, the confusion clear in her voice– she couldn’t decide whether she should be impressed or disgusted.

Dad knew which one he thought was appropriate. “Son, have you started taking in _strays?_ ”

James stood straight up and combed his fingers back through his hair. Shermie shot James a _please don’t get angry_ look and shook his head frantically. “No, no,” he said. “James is– uh– he was just watering my plants. I, uh, pay him.”

Ma nodded approvingly. Dad just let out a _huh_. He looked like he was preparing some comment about keeping plants and Shermie being a sissy, but at the same time, there was a rumbling below them; Xanthar knew Shermie was home, clearly, and wanted to know why he hadn’t stopped in the garage to say hello yet.

“What on _earth_ was that?” Ma asked, looking down at the floor.

“Nothing!” Shermie glanced downward too. “I just need to go downstairs to check the… furnace. I’ll be back up in a minute.” He gave Ma a strained smile and escaped to the garage, shutting the door behind him.

“Xanthar,” he said as he went down the stairs. “My _parents_ are here. I couldn’t tell them not to come. Look, they, uh, don’t take well to _weird_ …”

Xanthar started to speak, but Shermie waved his hands. “No, no, no! They’ll get suspicious if you start shaking the whole house. I told them I was down here to check the furnace.”

“Your house is heated by a giant purple blob?” Ma asked from the top of the stairs.

_(When Shermie was seventeen, he went with some other high schoolers to a haunted house in the next town over. In the room with all the mirrors, Shermie could have sworn he saw a trail of some kind of tiny garden gnome-like men wind along behind him. The guys he was with all laughed at him for falling for what they said was just effects and costumes.)_

Shermie’s head snapped around. “What–“

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Dad stood next to Ma, hat crumpled in his fist, and they both stared down at Shermie. “This… this _thing_ is the ‘beautiful woman’ you’ve told us about in your phone calls?”

Ma put a manicured hand on the railing. “You’re spending all your time with a _monster?_ You invited that thing into your own home?” She was quiet for a second before she added, “You would rather be with _that_ than your own _fam_ ily?” Her accent was the strongest Shermie had ever heard it.

“No, wait,” Shermie said.

“No, you listen.” Dad’s voice echoed in the garage. “You’re not welcome in our home anymore, you understand? Don’t call us again. Monster-loving freak. We’ll get our own coats.” Both of them left, and Dad slammed the door behind him. Shermie waited until he heard the front door slam, too, before he sat down hard on the cement floor.

James opened the garage door and came down the first few steps. “What was all that…?”

Shermie looked up at him, and after a moment, said: “Start packing your bags. We’re going to California.”


	6. Chapter 6

_sometime in 1997_

 

Shermie was not the kind of person who made a lot of outward displays of emotion. Despite this, he couldn’t get rid of the urge to scream as loud as he could, all the way from work where he told Mr. Fisher he would do it to the Jersey airport to the California airport to the house he had secured to lease. He had enrolled James in a new school and everything, and… the house had a back door big enough for Xanthar.

That didn’t mean the transition was easy, though. Shermie had to learn a whole new area, and he was not the kind of person who was good at remembering street names; James, of course, had to find his place in a new school; and Xanthar… well, Xanthar had to get there in the first place. Shermie had told xem over and over that xe didn’t have to come if it was too hard, but Xanthar had insisted. Xe just had to make it from New Jersey to California… on foot… through countless areas that weren’t necessarily monster-friendly.

Xe did get to see Yellowstone Park, though, and xe spent a while resting with the bison. Xe thought the bison were very pleasant company, and a welcome change from the endless gun-toting corn farmers in Indiana.

And once all three of them were where they needed to be, they managed. And they kept managing, until suddenly Shermie realised a year had passed and they seemed to know what they were doing. The position here really did pay more than his position in New Jersey had, and he’d started setting aside money to put James through college.

Shermie didn’t contact his parents.

One day, when Shermie was in the living room after work with Xanthar, the creature looked up from xer book. Shermie had eventually convinced xem to try reading some classics, and xe had taken quite a liking to Little Women. Xe said it was a fascinating study in human thinking, or something like that.

“Shermie,” xe said, “do you realise how long it’s been since you first trapped me in your garage?”

Shermie looked up and frowned. “…No?”

“Four years, in your time.” Xanthar’s voice took on a wistful tone. “In my time, it would be a little different…”

“Has it really been that long?” Shermie tried to count the years in his head, then sat up straighter and lowered his own book. “Xanthar,” he said. “Do you think I could see your dimension sometime?”

Xanthar brightened. “Would you really want to?” The house in California was much sturdier than the one in New Jersey; though it shook when Xanthar spoke, it didn’t constantly feel like it might fall apart.

“Of course I would.”

Xanthar started planning. Xe knew of some way to get back and forth, even though xe said it was usually very difficult; there was some day about four months away that Xanthar said was the best for interdimensional travel.

In the meantime, Shermie tried to make sure James didn’t get into too much trouble. Although it had been difficult for him to leave behind his girlfriend (or whatever Jessica had been to him), it didn’t take long for him to become familiar with a girl in California– Patricia, or something like that. James did many of the same things with her that he had done with Jessica, though Shermie knew better than to mention that around Patricia.

Two months before Xanthar’s planned day, James and Patricia each woke up in a panic. Shermie had made sure they slept in separate rooms– he wasn’t so oblivious toward what normal teenagers did that he would let them sleep in the same room, even if he had never done anything as a teenager himself– but they emerged from their rooms at the same time. “Shermie!” James shouted. “Something’s wrong– I can’t– ‘Tricia? Is that you? –Shermie, help, I can’t see–“

Shermie took one look at the two of them and shouted for Xanthar.

“There must be some way to undo it,” he said a few minutes later, when Xanthar had managed to calm the teenagers down enough to get them to sit still on the couch. “I mean, they can’t just not have _faces._ ”

Xanthar turned xer head toward him. Xe still wore the party hat, even though it was years old. “As the resident faceless one, I can assure you, it’s entirely possible.”

“But…” Shermie struggled. James and Patricia weren’t screaming anymore, just kind of… clinging to each other. Shermie scanned their faces– or, rather, what had once been their faces. “I mean, they’re _humans._ You’re, well, _not._ ”

Xanthar shrugged. “I’m sorry, Shermie– and James, and Patricia. I don’t think there is a way to undo the effects of dimensional residue. Look at it this way: at least now no one can tell where you’re looking.”

“I can’t _look_ at all!” Patricia burst out. “I don’t know how I’m even talking. I’m _blind_ thanks to you, you…” She struggled against what would have been tears if she had still had tear ducts. “You monster!”

“Not exactly.” Somehow, Xanthar was still calm. “I can still see, in a manner of speaking, and so can you. You just haven’t managed to get past the initial shock yet. You should have all the basic abilities you did originally, just… none of the physical features associated with them.”

They found that it was true after a while. Both of them kept going to school, but retreated more and more from other activities, just spending their time together at the house.

-

Another two months later, and it was the day Xanthar had been planning for. Xe made Shermie pack a bag, but a small one; xe didn’t expect to be there very long, just long enough for Shermie to see what it was like and… maybe meet Xanthar’s parents. “Since I met yours, even if it didn’t go very well.”

It was a Saturday, so James was home from school, and Patricia was over; they waved goodbye as Shermie and Xanthar left. “We’ll be back soon, I promise,” Shermie called from Xanthar’s back as xe started walking north.

Xanthar took Shermie out into the woods a few miles from the house. “We can’t do this around other people,” xe said. “I don’t want anyone else to find this and get trapped or… anything.”

Then xe set up a bunch of material in a circle on the ground and did something that went too fast for Shermie to make sense of, and light burst out of nowhere, and when Shermie could see again there was a shining portal in front of them.


	7. Chapter 7

_sometime in 1998_

 

At Xanthar’s direction, Shermie tied a rope around his waist and around Xanthar’s leg so they didn’t get separated somehow. The travel between dimensions could get a little rough, Xanthar said. It was just a precaution, though; Xanthar assured him everything should be just fine.

And then, after looking at each other to make sure they were really ready, both of them stepped into the portal.

Shermie felt something pulling him apart, and he couldn’t see. At first he thought the strain was just Xanthar’s weight pulling at the rope around their middles, but he opened his eyes and couldn’t see Xanthar, just the rope stretching into blinding white nothingness.

No– no, not nothingness. Impossibly bright shapes flew past him at speeds so high he could barely see them before they were gone, and they made him dizzy so he spun and spun and the wind scorched his ears. Something far below him burned, burned, and he could feel the flames reaching his feet and it was too **hot** –

Numbers spilled out in front of him like bees escaping a hive. **_Hot_** or maybe wasps. Maybe hornets. What started as a buzz grew, and focused, **_hot_** , and then bled into a whine that filled his blistering ears and his head and made his body feel like it wasn’t his anymore. He tried shouting for Xanthar– was this the hell his best friend was from?– but if he made any sound, he couldn’t hear it. _When Shermie was twenty-three he saw a man swallowed by the earth, and the earth had teeth_ – he heard too much– the whine, and shouts from all sides that echoed from all sides and built into a clamour that didn’t refocus into anything more singular. **_Hot_**. White and bright colours kept flashing around his head and he couldn’t tell if this was ever going to end something slithered under his skin somehow he knew his world had ended in flames a long time ago but he was also going through the end of the world _now_ and it was _cold–_

He was still being torn in two. At the same time, something pressed in on him, down– squashing him flat **_hot_** – and with a scream that he thought he _almost_ heard through the ear-splitting whine he pulled out the knife Xanthar had made him bring and sawed through the rope.

He fell, or maybe he rose– direction meant nothing here and he couldn’t breathe the cold hard wind– and slammed into something, then something else, he couldn’t see didn’t think he could hear couldn’t think at all– and then he was rolling on– ground. Ground this was solid ground and he couldn’t move.

 _Where am I_ he grabbed handfuls of dirt and cypress needles and the heel of his hand scraped across a rock was he bleeding? somehow he got to his feet– maybe hands and knees– there was dirt in the scrape on his hand– and got away, as far away as he could he wasn’t sure how much time had passed _when Shermie was eleven it wasn’t a gargoyle_ but he somehow found a highway and stumbled along it, dropping to his knees every now and then, _looked out the window just in time to_ – his eyes cleared just enough to realise that it was nighttime and he _an unsuspecting businessman, suit and all_ hid himself in the trees so the hornets wouldn’t find him.

His dreams were savage white and full of death but when he woke up he was Shermie again.

His head, Shermie’s head, was so full of everything he still couldn’t think right. “Have to,” he croaked, but he wasn’t sure what he _had to._

He’d looked for his brothers once. One was dead. The other lived in Oregon.

 _Oregon. Brother._ He couldn’t remember his brothers but he wasn’t going back to his parents. _James_ rang through his head but he couldn’t figure out what that name meant. _Oregon._ He didn’t have anyone _Xanthar did this_ he couldn’t think of what the name James meant so _brother_ he would go to Oregon it wasn’t that far away–

He was in California. He’d forgotten that.

Oregon really wasn’t that far away.

When a man in a gray truck pulled over and asked if he needed any help, Shermie told the man he needed to get to Oregon. And the man said, “Hop in. I can’t take you all the way, but I can take you further than you’ll get on your own.”


	8. Chapter 8

_sometime in 1998_

 

Four men in trucks before he got to Oregon. Two more to get him to– _brother where does brother live–_ Gravity Falls. One of them asked Shermie why needed to go to Gravity Falls, but Shermie could only give him a blank, eyes-too-wide stare. The man shut his mouth and turned back to the road.

Shermie still couldn’t figure out what _James_ meant. He told all the men in trucks about what he had seen.

He lost track of time. Eventually the last guy dropped him off a couple miles outside of Gravity Falls and told him to “get the rest of the way on your own, weirdo. I don’t go into that freaky town.”

Shermie walked the rest of the way.

Once there, he had no idea how to find _brother._    He wasn’t even sure which brother he was looking for. That night, he collapsed on a street corner and mumbled to himself about the giant bird from his sixth grade window.

He thought he saw strange figures in robes.

-

The next thing Shermie knew, he was somewhere dark– it felt underground, maybe– and strapped to a chair. He fought against whatever held him there, until he registered the robed figures standing all around him.

“What is your name?” one of them asked.

Shermie had to think. “Shermie Pines,” he said. “Who are you all…?”

“What have you seen?” the same one asked.

Shermie tried to think again, and white flashed in front of his eyes he _couldn’t–_ “Everything. Too much.”

The figure who had been asking the questions nodded to another, who did something to a device that looked like a turkey baster gone wrong. “You will forget.”

“No!” Shermie said. Then, as the second figure leveled the device at him, he asked, “…That thing can really erase my memories?”

The first figure motioned for the other to wait. “Yes.”

“Can you…” Shermie let his head drop against the chair’s headrest and stared at the dark ceiling. “I want to forget all of it.” _A trail of some kind of tiny garden gnome-like men._

“All of what?”

“I–“ Shermie thought, and the white of the portal to hell blinded him but he remembered more _six fingers on each hand_ and he wanted it all _gone._ “Me. Erase me. Make me someone new, someone… _normal._ ”

The second figure turned to the first, and the first paused, then nodded. “Very well.”

There was another flash of white, but it led to peace. Emptiness.


	9. Chapter 9

_sometime in 1998_

 

A man with black hair, five fingers on each hand, and a killer headache woke up in a dark room. An awful lot of people stood around him, and as he sat up groggily he tried to clear his head. “Where am I?”

“You fell. You’re safe now. Come on, why don’t we get you home.”

The man was helped to his feet by two of the people nearby. They led him to an elevator, out a door, and down a few streets until he was… was this home? It must have been.

“Don’t worry, it’s unlocked,” one of the men holding him up said, pointing to the door. “Why don’t you go inside and get some sleep?”

That sounded like a great idea, the man decided. Maybe then he would be able to get rid of this headache.

“Uh, thanks,” he said, as the people who had helped him turned away. “Did I get your names…?”

One of them said something, but the man didn’t think it was a name.

Speaking of which, what was _his_ name?

He frowned, thinking about this. When he came up with no answer, he went to the door and opened it. It was unlocked, like they had said. He decided his name would probably come to him later.

The next day, his headache was mostly gone, though it still kind of lingered around the edges if he thought too hard. His name still hadn’t come to him, but he was hungry, and decided that figuring out his name wasn’t as important as food. There was money in his pockets– he wasn’t sure where he worked, but clearly he had at least some money– so he went outside and _oh_ the sun was bright. He blinked away the white in his vision.

“Um, excuse me,” he said to a woman passing by. “Could you… direct me to a supermarket?”

She looked him up and down. “Why, _yes._ ” One of her eyes didn’t open all the way. “Come with me, young man.”

As they walked, they talked. Well, she did most of the talking; the man mostly just answered her questions. When he hardly had answers for any of them, she remarked, “ _My_ , you’re a tad strange, aren’t you?”

He paused. “…Yes,” he said, brightening. “I suppose I am.”

“Anyway, here’s the supermarket,” the woman said. “You take care of yourself, al _right?_ ”

 _Tad Strange_. He tested the name under his breath as he walked through the aisles of the supermarket. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he needed to eat something.

 _Tad Strange._ Yes, that felt right. Tad Strange. Short for Thaddeus, maybe? He winced. What kind of parent named their kid _Thaddeus?_

As soon as he got to the bread aisle, the man– Tad– stopped. There was something about… the bread. The shape of it. It was familiar, in a way that he thought maybe bread shouldn’t have been familiar.

Tad did not think he was the kind of person who bought four loaves of bread all at once.

He did it anyway.

Along with some peanut butter. He knew he couldn’t get by on just bread.

“What on earth do you need all that bread for?” the cashier asked, as she put his bread in a plastic sack and handed it back to him. “Are you having a party or something?”

Tad shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. It’s just for me.”

 

Tad Strange settled into Gravity Falls well enough. He never figured out where he used to work, and he couldn’t remember what sort of things he might put on a resume, but he got a job, and it paid the bills. Wasn’t that silly, though– paying bills for a house he couldn’t remember buying. But it was the law. He paid the bills.

People got to know him. He got to know people. He felt like maybe he should have already known people, and they should have already known him, but maybe he was newer in town than he thought. It was okay. People seemed to like him, even if they hadn’t known him very well ‘before.’

He found out that he continued to really like bread, but he didn’t know why. There was just something about it that reminded him, maybe, of something in a distant past. He was the kind of person who just really liked bread, and he accepted that.

 

-

 

Xanthar did not have trouble getting through the rift and into xer dimension. When xe did, though, xe looked around for Shermie and…

The rope had been cut. A few of the items from Shermie’s bag were spilled on the ground, but neither Shermie nor the bag itself were anywhere to be seen.

“Shermie!” Xanthar bellowed. Xer friend was nowhere in sight. Shermie had probably panicked and cut the rope and… gotten sucked into the void or something like that. Terrible things happened to those who traveled across dimensions without knowing where they were going. Shermie should have just trusted xem, shouldn’t have cut the rope…

Xanthar let out another pained bellow.

-

Xe went back to xer old friends.

Bill Cipher was the first to see xem. _“WE-E-ELL, XANTHAR! YOU’VE BEEN GONE A WHILE! HOW’S YOUR SOFT AND BREAKABLE NEW BEST FRIEND?”_ It was longer for Bill than it had been for Xanthar.

“Gone. Hey, Bill?” Maybe Xanthar missed Earth, but xer friend was gone, probably forever. It was good to be back here with familiar weirdness. Xanthar would make it be good to be back.

_“WHAT IS IT, PAL?”_

“You know your plan to tear a hole between dimensions and turn Earth into a hell like this place?”

_“YEAH, THE PLAN YOU WOULDN’T SUPPORT BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT IT WAS ‘TOO VIOLENT’ OR SOMETHING.”_

Xanthar thought about Shermie. Xe would never see him again. “I think you should go ahead with it. Try again. Find someone new over there to let you in.”

-

Shermie Pines was presumed dead. James Pines went to community college on what money Shermie had saved before his death, and married Patricia not much later. They had twins. They eventually forgot about Xanthar, because anybody’s mind would file something like that away in the back given the chance. Their kids never knew them with faces.


	10. Epilogue

_2012_

 

Fourteen years after Tad Strange became Tad Strange, the world ended.

Tad Strange did not know the world was ending. His grandchildren did, but he did not know they were his grandchildren.

He was there, though, when the talking triangle with the voice from hell tore open the sky and unleashed its friends on the world. Goblin, square, _giant elephant bread-gorilla_ … Tad felt an uncomfortable feeling he couldn’t identify bubble up in his stomach and barely registered the rest of the creatures that came through the tear in the sky. He was not used to feeling things he couldn’t name. Maybe it was his breakfast. Maybe it was the memories straining to be released from where they had been locked away for fourteen years.

For some reason, he was glad the big bread-shaped creature didn’t seem to have noticed him yet. While other citizens of Gravity Falls shouted at the triangle demon, Tad slipped away into the forest, where he sank down to the ground under a pine tree and stared at nothing. Why had that creature shaken him so much?

That triangle demon’s words echoed in his head, as well as… something else. _They say my name must “_ THE BEING WHOSE NAME MUST NEVER BE SAID! _” never be said._ It felt like a memory somehow, and had the taste of being much older than Tad had ever been able to remember.

He knew who to go to if he saw something he shouldn’t have. That would be easiest; he could forget what he had seen and keep being Tad Strange, ordinary guy.

But there was _something–_

_“HAHA, WHAT THE HECK. IT’S XANTHAR.”_

Xanthar.

For the first time in fourteen years, the man who was now Tad Strange let the name Xanthar go through his head, and on its way through it snagged on other memories, things so far back– and so disjointed from what he knew about himself– they felt like they had happened in a different life. _A garage in New Jersey, disapproval from parents he couldn’t remember knowing, a teenage boy named James…_

And in the center of it all, the same giant purple monster that had come into Gravity Falls from hell. It wore a blue-and-purple party hat.

 _Hell._ White flashing in front of his eyes, an endless shrill whine in his ears, being pulled in half– it took him a moment to remember the damp forest ground underneath him and that he was still _here._

Wherever _here_ was– memories of things he shouldn’t have seen, going back to the figures in robes again and again it was no _wonder_ he lost time so often– nightmares whose horrors didn’t go away after waking up– constant crawling sensations up his spine– disappearances–

Shermie Pines– a man who hadn’t existed in fourteen years–

Xanthar–

A garage in New Jersey–

 

_Who am I?_

 

_Hell–_

_A garage in New Jersey–_

 

Tad Pines– Shermie Strange– got to his feet and stumbled back toward town. He stood on the edge of things, watching as the triangle demon and his friends– _Xanthar–_ let hell bleed over. He remembered evenings sitting reading in quiet company with Xanthar, and at least xe didn’t laugh the same way xer friends did. But it was like watching a stranger.

After a while, he turned away and started walking.

He didn’t know who he was or where he was going, but he couldn’t stay here anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is all going to be confirmed in weirdmageddon part 3 I promise. trust me.


End file.
